Rating: 
Summary: Simmons at his best
Review: A beautifully written, engaging tale with fully-realized characters. Not your typical Dan Simmons fare (nary a supernatural bogey or SF element to be found) , but a must read nonetheless.
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Summary: Taking Stock
Review: Dan Simmons has done something very rare in writing today. He makes you think. He has written a book about taking stock of ones life. His protangonist has been to the moon, which would make him the envy of many people. Yet, his life is not working. So the story weaves its magic on the reader. As the story proceeds, some of lifes questions are answered for the hero, but not all of them. There is a sense of disquiet that pervades the story. Better yet, melancholy best describes this work. If you going through your own personal search for the meaning of life or want a sense of what it could be like, then I highly recommend this novel. There are no aliens or monsters with this read, but it stands along with the best of what he has written. It is truly an amazing piece.
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Summary: Un libro indescriptible
Review: Efectivamente, no lo puedo describir. Sólo puedo decir que cuanto leía me envolvía y me parecía estar viviéndolo. Especialmente la forma en que se sentían los personajes, sus más íntimos estados de ánimo. No estaban escritos, pero yo los sentía. Y el calor de la India, y la oscuridad de la noche, y la inefable cualidad de ella...Lo compré sin saber nada de él, porque me gustó Hyperion. Son de géneros completamente distintos, y me gustó igualmente.
Rating:
Summary: Simmons best described this book within the book . . .
Review: His friend, Dave, tells him how he wants his story written, "I want to know what these suckers are feeling. I want to know what they don't tell their wives in the middle of the night when they can't sleep. I want to know what moves them right down to the seat of their meat. I don't care how inarticulate we poor ex-jet jockeys are, I expect you to get in there with your little epistemological proctoscope...damn, that's good...I can't be too drunk if I can say that, huh? I want you to get in there and find out what we need to know about ourselves, okay, Richard?"
That one excerpt describes the heart of this book. I do have two minor complaints 1) a lot of the "inner" stories are dropped just when they get really interesting, and 2) skipping back and forth in time - I wish authors were not so compelled to do that. You gotta story to tell? Tell it! Flip-flopping back and forth takes away from the story (for me, anyway). Nevertheless. Great Book. Find It. Buy It. Read It!
Rating:
Summary: Minor masterpiece
Review: I had never heard of this Dan Simmons book until the moment when I first saw it in some comic book store . . . and that immediately intruiged me. Generally with a successful author you hear about all of their books, whether it's the glorious peaks of their best work or the terrible quality that is the worst they have to offer. Curious I picked it up and put it on a shelf to read until just the other day, and now I finally finished. And I'm definitely impressed. This has to be one of the Simmons' least known and most underrated works, all of his fans who read his Hyperion series or even the fans who like his horror work should come and get this, because it falls nicely in the middle. Neither a science fiction nor a horror novel, this time he chooses to write about the simplest and most complex of topics: people. The novel concerns the spiritual (in a sense) quest of a former astronaut who once walked on the moon and his attempts to come to terms with his life and all that has transpired. It raises the interesting question, once you've sacrificed nearly everything so you can do what only a handful of men have done, isn't everything downhill after that. And if you leave your life in ruins because of those sacrifices, well you can't stay in space forever and you've eventually got to come down and face the music. The more is vastly more complicated than that and even though it doesn't have snarling vampires or weird spiky creatures (not that I don't like those) guarenteed you won't miss them one bit. Simmons crafts his main character with all the depth of a real person and eventually he becomes someone you want to know and someone you do get to know. His style is still marvelously apparent, his gift for description and detail never in better evidence here, especially when describing dreams or nature sequences, or even the cold beauty of space. Most of all this book has heart, Simmons has a real affection for the material and the characters and that shows through on every page. This is one of those books you can't go wrong with. Sadly out of print, try your best to snag a used copy and get ready to discover another facet of the man that you might not have realized. If anything this proves that Simmons can do any type of novel he wants and still create something of quality.
Rating:
Summary: Minor masterpiece
Review: I had never heard of this Dan Simmons book until the moment when I first saw it in some comic book store . . . and that immediately intruiged me. Generally with a successful author you hear about all of their books, whether it's the glorious peaks of their best work or the terrible quality that is the worst they have to offer. Curious I picked it up and put it on a shelf to read until just the other day, and now I finally finished. And I'm definitely impressed. This has to be one of the Simmons' least known and most underrated works, all of his fans who read his Hyperion series or even the fans who like his horror work should come and get this, because it falls nicely in the middle. Neither a science fiction nor a horror novel, this time he chooses to write about the simplest and most complex of topics: people. The novel concerns the spiritual (in a sense) quest of a former astronaut who once walked on the moon and his attempts to come to terms with his life and all that has transpired. It raises the interesting question, once you've sacrificed nearly everything so you can do what only a handful of men have done, isn't everything downhill after that. And if you leave your life in ruins because of those sacrifices, well you can't stay in space forever and you've eventually got to come down and face the music. The more is vastly more complicated than that and even though it doesn't have snarling vampires or weird spiky creatures (not that I don't like those) guarenteed you won't miss them one bit. Simmons crafts his main character with all the depth of a real person and eventually he becomes someone you want to know and someone you do get to know. His style is still marvelously apparent, his gift for description and detail never in better evidence here, especially when describing dreams or nature sequences, or even the cold beauty of space. Most of all this book has heart, Simmons has a real affection for the material and the characters and that shows through on every page. This is one of those books you can't go wrong with. Sadly out of print, try your best to snag a used copy and get ready to discover another facet of the man that you might not have realized. If anything this proves that Simmons can do any type of novel he wants and still create something of quality.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent main-stream novel
Review: I really liked this book. It works at all levels. I think that Simmons is good in this kind of novels as well as science fiction but he should avoid writing horror novels.
Rating:
Summary: Couldnt put it down
Review: I'm 22, I read a lot. Dan Simmons has recently become my all time favorite author after reading the Hyperion books, Ilium, Carrion Comfort, and a few of his others. One I checked out and bought through Amazon was this one Phases of Gravity. It already has some outstandingly written reviews that I just read through, so I can't really elaborate much on what they've said. Basically, this is not my genre of book, but damnit I'm committed to finding a book Dan Simmons has written that isn't absolutley genuinely phenomonal. Hahaha! Well, I haven't yet. I read this book in three or four days, and loved every minute of it. It's such a refreshing departure from everyones formula of "Save the world!" and "Gasp! People are getting eaten somewhere!" It's a down to earth (haha) book about Richard Baedecker and his search to find himself. It's amazing, because being one of the few people to go to the Moon and walk on it, it deals with his life afterwards and how he seems to be unable to find any meaning in anything. The book takes you through what basically amounts to a year or two of his life. I certainly walked away with something, a feeling almost palpable. I just finished it 10 minutes ago and I STILL have the chills!!! Great book! Not for everyone, but fantastic nonetheless. And it's not a long read either, so what have you got to lose? Give it a shot!
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Summary: Great Work in yet another Category
Review: If you are only familiar with Simmons work if strange alien races are embarking on Chaucer-like pilgrimages to distant worlds or troubled humans are brought at odds with the dark elements of human mythology and taboo, then read this book and watch Simmons demonstrate that he writes resonant tales in several categories of fiction. This was the third Simmons book I read, and remains a close second behind Summer of Night after reading nearly all his catalogue. How wonderful to consider the many meanings to the title. And who will ever forget the glass enclosed planetarium - its images sear themselves upon the retinas of the minds eye, and your happy for it Hazahhh!!!
Rating:
Summary: God, I love Dan Simmons
Review: Phases of Gravity is one of the first Dan Simmons books I read (after being hooked by Hyperion) and is definately one of the best. Simmons has an incredible style, and in Phases of Gravity it really shines. Read it just to be able to really appreciate the last line of the book, one of the most beautiful and moving phrases I have ever read. A truly great book.
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